


so familiar a gleam

by rashaka



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Feelings, Fluff, Gen, Mirror Universe, Nemeton, Romance, sort of, world jumping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-18
Updated: 2014-02-18
Packaged: 2018-01-12 21:11:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1200829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rashaka/pseuds/rashaka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's spring of their senior year.  Allison just turned nineteen, everyone is preparing for their various colleges, and in between the typical studying and heartbreak the pack successfully stopped a sorcerer from opening a wormhole outside their town.  No problem, right?  Except dabbling with portal magic can have...unintended consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	so familiar a gleam

**Author's Note:**

> canon and non-canon relationships. most of the story takes place in a canon-compliant, slight future AU, and relationships will track from there. however, where the mirror universe is concerned...things are different.

Prologue

_There Are Other Worlds Than These_

"It's gonna be fine." Derek whispered his promise into her ear, hoping like hell it wasn't a lie. Allison's arms tightened around his neck and he felt her breath against his skin, shallow and scared.

"I hate that it has to be you. I should be doing it. It's half my fault the gate opened in the first—"

Derek interrupted her with a hushing gesture. "Allison, I'm doing it. I'm the one who has the best chance of surviving. Hard to kill, remember? I'll be fine." He wanted to hold her forever, touch her forever, but he settled for tiny brushes of her hair, her cheeks, her temple. Allison leaned into it, revelling in these last intimacies. She rested her forhead against his until an exasperated voice shouted from off to their left.

"This portal is growing the longer you two ogle each other!" Derek let his hands fall away as he stepped back to look at the Lydia. She stood before the Nemeton, her palms outstretched. Beyond her small hands the air was distorted; it rippled like a funhouse mirror and Lydia winced with every pulsating wave. A few feet back, hovering as anxiously as guard dog, Isaac looked from his former Alpha to the banshee doing her damnedest to hold back the cosmos long enough for everyone to say their goodbyes.

Not that it would be a goodbye, not a chance. All rational concerns aside, Derek had no intention of dying tonight. He could survive a mystical portal the same way he'd survived everything else this fucking world had thrown at him: by pushing through it.

Hunching his shoulders to pop his neck, Derek took a stone sphere from his pocket. Made of black onyx and covered in runes, the orb gleamed like dark water. Where the full moon reflected on its surface, the play of shadows and light pulsed in time with the portal's distortions. His hand cupped it, hefting the weight of its magic, and with a similar heaviness in his chest, he turned to see his friends arrayed behind him.

Allison's face was on the edge of crumpling; she gripped her bow so tightly at her hip that her knuckles were white. Beside her Kira and Deaton watched with open faces and no small amount of awe. On the opposite side of the ring of trees was the Alpha of Beacon Hills, the only other person possibly strong enough to seal the breach. Held between Erica and Stiles, his broken leg still unable to support his weight, Scott nodded with so much trust and confidence that Derek felt momentarily dizzy for awe of it.

He let the rune sphere roll between his fingers, and looked one more time at Allison.

"Do it now!" shrieked Lydia. Her hair whipped in every direction, and the massive tree stump that had caused so much grief was almost invisible from the new curls in reality that formed above it.

With a growl Derek sprinted toward the Nemeton. The moonlight shown directly into the nexus point, illuminating Lydia's skin like silver. As he passed her, she flung her hands out and stumbled backward into Isaac's arms.

Roaring like his ancestors before him, Derek leapt into the air, slammed the rune sphere down inside the portal's mouth, and held it in place against pressure so devastating his blood began to heat beneath his skin. He roared again, as loud as he could until the oxygen was sucked from his lungs and the world twisted into pinpoints of color. A voice shouted his name, the universe bent, and then he was consumed by eternity.

**Author's Note:**

> oh dear I seem to have started a chapter fic. someone rescue me. written from an anonymous prompt that asked what happens when Derek from a mirror universe trades place with canon Derek. one catch: in the reflected universe, he's involved with Allison. and that's not something Allison wants to think about at all. ever.


End file.
